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Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#41

Post by whynotmaybe »

pnf wrote: post #14

Save it to a "read it later" app. Forget all about it. Move on with life. When you need something, search for it. By that time, there will be a hundred other hits saying or doing the same thing. If you really want to remember something, write it down in a giant text file with a date stamp. You'll still forget it, but you'll more likely remember it exists later if you need it. Next step is to stop spending "a lot of t…

Being too often on HN is clearly destructive for me.

Seeing a post about some advanced stuff where I don't understand anything in the article and seeing dozen of different people commenting on it gives me such an imposter syndrome.

My mind goes into the "HN is for people like you, you should know this stuff"

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#43

Post by brailsafe »

I don't do anything, because I just realized that the overwhelming majority of everything I read or comment on isn't unique or doesn't matter, and it's just a momentary indulgence. The rest I can just search for, check the threads I've commented on, or it's in pocket, but I truly don't care about most of it. I can't think of a time I've actually thought to click on a bookmark, and I've maybe re-looked at a pocket article maybe once in the decade I've been using read it later services.

I find that also I'm much happier with this relationship to the crap I look at. It's neat for the moment, maybe impactful, maybe provides residual utility, but if there's something I need to know it likely won't come to me randomly while browsing on HN.

Once you read a critical mass of posts about anything you deem interesting, you'll almost certainly start seeing the same idea pop up again as other people have the same revelation, but by then there's a good chance I've moved on anyway.

Really important things demand deliberate attention to either learn about the existence of or learn the subject matter, and a lot of the time it's not really something I'd accept as a valid use of my attention, unless it's a hobby I'm steeped in. Not even more than video games. Not because it's not a valid use of anyone's time, but to really get value out of anything, it needs dedication, not a cursory perusal, so I accept that most stuff im casually perusing just isn't very important.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#45

Post by mesarvagya »

alunchbox wrote: post #18
pnf wrote: post #14

Save it to a "read it later" app. Forget all about it. Move on with life. When you need something, search for it. By that time, there will be a hundred other hits saying or doing the same thing. If you really want to remember something, write it down in a giant text file with a date stamp. You'll still forget it, but you'll more likely remember it exists later if you need it. Next step is to stop spending "a lot of t…

That's the catch though, stay out of media and then you're ignorant of things happening, as tiring as it is. Stay with social news apps like reddit and yeah they're a huge time waster but quick aggregation of news and can get you a good understanding of what's happening.

What's wrong with being ignorant? People lived being ignorant way before social media was even invented. In a way, ignorance is bliss. I would rather stay out of social media than consuming all bullshit news, that has no direct impact in my life.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#46

Post by timoteostewart »

alunchbox wrote: post #18
pnf wrote: post #14

Save it to a "read it later" app. Forget all about it. Move on with life. When you need something, search for it. By that time, there will be a hundred other hits saying or doing the same thing. If you really want to remember something, write it down in a giant text file with a date stamp. You'll still forget it, but you'll more likely remember it exists later if you need it. Next step is to stop spending "a lot of t…

That's the catch though, stay out of media and then you're ignorant of things happening, as tiring as it is. Stay with social news apps like reddit and yeah they're a huge time waster but quick aggregation of news and can get you a good understanding of what's happening.

Makes me think of this quote from Richard Hamming, to the extent that having an ear tuned into the news is like having your office door open:

    "Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."

    (from "You and Your Research," 1986)

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#47

Post by nunez »

I use Pocket for almost everything.

It is very difficult for me to get time to read throughout the day, so I skim the Hacker News section of Skimfeed and my multireddits on Reddit and share any links that look interesting to Pocket using the Share feature along the way. I then spend way longer than I want catching up.

I often dream of having a day or three of doing nothing but eating/drinking, walking, working out, coding and reading everything in my feeds without time limitations. Until then, Pocket to the rescue.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#48

Post by mackrevinack »

i started using Grist recently as a place where i could save almost everything, movies/tv shows to watch, books to read, audiobooks, podcasts, bits of software/services to try out etc etc

being able to have a notes column is handy. i have so many things ive bookmarked but then years can't remember why!

its also let's you embed an image and a youtube video which can be useful for jogging your memory.

im only experimenting with it at the moment but i think some type of web clipper is what i need to start using this more, otherwise there's just a lot of manual work each time you want to save something

https://www.getgrist.com

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#49

Post by fedeb95 »

Why pocket doesn't work for you? I think its search feature is useful to find things. Plus it has tags, but I'm too lazy to use them.

There are two things I use: the first is taking notes of my thoughts so that I can remember better for later elaboration. Replace "thoughts" with "project" or whatever. Let's say you find a cool library: do a quickstart project even if silly, it's kind of like a note that helps remembering. The second is randomness: if I forget or can't find something, maybe its a disadvantage, but maybe it's also an advantage, making me focus on new things.

Another thing I do seldom is reviewing my saved items in pocket (that's the only one I use). If something it's no more interesting to me, I delete it.

About taking notes (real notes): I make quick and dirty ones with standard notes, then use obsidian to write more structured things starting from the quick notes.

I can't say to you I've solved the problem. But for how I view information, it is simply too chaotic to try and control and optimise its flow, it has to be managed in some way accepting its random nature.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of all the content you encounter?

#50

Post by LunarAurora »

mackrevinack wrote: post #48

i started using Grist recently as a place where i could save almost everything, movies/tv shows to watch, books to read, audiobooks, podcasts, bits of software/services to try out etc etc being able to have a notes column is handy. i have so many things ive bookmarked but then years can't remember why! its also let's you embed an image and a youtube video which can be useful for jogging your memory. im only experimen…

I Love grist. The good news is it supports incremental imports (=Merge). So personally, for daily use, I bookmark with the excellent Raindrop.io web clipper (you can add notes). From time to time, I would export everything as CSV (option included) to grist.

Another similar option I like is Notion. Its databases are less powerful than grist, but more than enough for cataloguing/bookmarking. And good web clippers exist for it like this one https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-to-notion/ldm...

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